


and all the tiny ruins

by wastrelwoods



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Breathplay, Frottage, Hair-pulling, Knight of the Crown Lord of the Swamp, Light Bondage, Literally a lizard man, Multi, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Polyamory, Rough Oral Sex, Threesome - F/M/M, do lizards have dicks? google says no i but i just checked and apparently i dont care, kinda d/s, not really spoilery but written post part 2, second citadel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-15 22:29:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11240598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wastrelwoods/pseuds/wastrelwoods
Summary: Damien loves Rilla. Damien loves Lord Arum. These things should be incompatible and yet, somehow, they are not.





	and all the tiny ruins

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'polyamory, with knives' by jeanann verlee, which is thematically kind of extremely appropriate to these three

"Is this alright, Damien?"

One of Rilla's scarves loosely binds his wrists together, and he's kneeling in front of her, her hands cradling his face. Calloused hands, stained dark with herbs over the years. He can smell sage on her skin.

His breath is coming far too fast, but her hands are steady, sliding to grip his hair and pull, just a little. Damien shudders. 

"Damien," she says, a warning, and he forces himself to meet her eyes, sparkling like crystal. Her expression is warm, open, all the beauty of the stars condensed to one face. 

"Yes," he gasps out. "That is, I...yes."

"Good," Rilla soothes, loosing her grip on his short, dark curls. He falls forward, nearly into her lap, feels his heart continue to thunder in his chest. From behind him comes a low, rasping laugh.

Lord Arum. 

Damien doesn't turn to look, but he feels his attention pivot, every sense honing in on the metallic slither of Arum's movements, the smell of dirt and iron that clings to him, the way the floor shifts under his feet as he stalks closer. Close enough to flick his tongue out to taste the air by Damien's ear. Close enough to kiss, or kill. 

Rilla's hand lands in the center of his chest, over his beating heart, like she can steady it with a little pressure and a prayer. At the same time, rough fingertips dance over the nape of his neck. 

"Such a strange little knight," he chuckles, and wraps his hand in Damien's hair just the same way Rilla had, tugging his head up, up until those piercing violet eyes slide into view. "to brag endlessly about your victories, when you take far greater pleasure in _submitting_." 

Damien can't suppress a soft groan in reply. Claws are scraping over his scalp, Arum's grip forcing his neck into a half-painful arc, baring his throat. He's sure the way his pulse jumps in his throat must be evident. 

He really ought to be more afraid. 

"There is..." he strains, voice wavering, "more than one way to win a fight, Lord Arum." 

His reptilian face shifts and his eyes shine gold, reflecting the lamplight. Arum bares his teeth, and lets go. 

Rilla's hand stays steady in the center of his chest, fingers curling in the fabric of his tunic. "Come on, then, Damien," she says softly, her other hand reaching down to lift her skirts where she sits, perched on the edge of the bed. "Let's show him your strengths."

Arum bristles. "If you make one witless pun about swordplay," he begins, but Rilla's laughter cuts him off. 

"Not at all, Lord Arum," she soothes. Damien is already shifting towards her, half-crawling and half toppling forward, without his arms to catch him. She doesn't let him fall too far. "You know, my fiance has the most talented tongue in a hundred leagues of this citadel." 

Damien flushes, but his face is already hidden between her thighs so he supposes it's no great worry. 

He could write such poems praising Rilla's sex, if she hadn't expressly forbidden such an undertaking in no uncertain terms. He could write ballads. Entire symphonies, perhaps. The thrill of the taste of her almost puts him in a mind to forget the way Arum watches. 

He stands just at the corner of Damien's vision, turning his head this way and that, his four arms splayed awkwardly and his tongue flicking gently between his sharp teeth. Caught off his guard. There's something about seeing him wrong-footed that makes Damien's gut churn with excitement. 

Rilla's hands settle in his hair again, letting out a melodic kind of low cry as he works. Her legs tremble, and she shifts to throw one over Damien's shoulder and drag him in closer still. 

Her lower lips are dark and warm, and part eagerly for his tongue. And the taste of her, magnificent, as sweet as honey, as rich as pomegranates, the best taste in the world--

"Hush," Rilla says, with a sharp tug and a moan low in her throat. "Damien, hush, you needn't say that every time."

Reluctantly, he stops, breathing hard and fast and resting his cheek against the soft skin of her inner thigh. "I...must speak my heart," he manages hoarsely.

Rilla looks at him with fond exasperation writ in the line of her brow, and shakes her head. "You never can put away your words for an instant, can you, Sir Poet?'

Something twists in the center of Damien's chest, and he starts. "I did not...I am sorry, my love, truly..."

All four of Arum's hands are on him quite without warning, winding around his waist and pinning his bound hands to his sides, slipping just below the hem of his tunic. "You needn't be so delicate, Honeysuckle," he hisses. "The lady was only being modest." His hand rakes across Damien's chest, drawing a ragged gasp from his lips. Lord Arum's weight is draped all along his back, winding around him, strong and sinuous and just like the predator he is. "And besides, you must save some of your poetry for me." 

His breath is cool on Damien's neck, and his teeth are really far too sharp. Were he not held so tightly he thinks he might shake apart with the feeling of it. "With lovers like the two of you," he says, lightheaded, as Arum lifts him high enough to slide a leg between his own, "A man would be hard pressed to run out of words." 

In response, Rilla spreads her legs farther, and raises an eyebrow. "You had best give the lady what she asks for," Arum rasps, nipping at the edge of Damien's jaw and then releasing him. 

The lizard Lord makes a sort of sound Damien has never heard before when Rilla curses and begins to cant her hips up into his mouth. A kind of rattling hiss, strange but entirely entrancing. 

"My knight makes a pretty conquest, doesn't he?" Rilla says breathlessly, and gasps. " _Oh_ , yes, like that!"

Arum lets out another rattle, lower, his tail twitching abruptly into Damien's view as it thrashes. "The pair of you," he chokes out, "were sent to torment me." 

Rilla laughs, and Damien groans. "If you aren't going to enjoy the show, Lord Arum, it--oh, _saints_! It's no fault of mine."

He snarls in reply, but Damien is quite preoccupied with the sensation of Rilla's thighs tightening around him, her body lifting off the bed as she grinds down again and cries out, shuddering.

She holds him there a minute longer, speaking syllables that sound like wordless songs, her fingers curled so tightly in his hair that she might pull it out by the roots. Damien groans again, and gasps for air, and pulls away so breathless that tears trickle from the corners of his eyes. There's a poem in his heart, it makes him fair ache with happiness. "Tranquility," he mumbles to himself, to stave off the building crescendo at the base of his spine. "Grant me....oh, Rilla."

She laughs, slumping back onto the bedsheets bonelessly. "All yours," she sighs. 

Bewildered, Damien stares at her a moment longer before understanding dawns, and Arum pounces.

He lifts Damien up and onto the bed beside her in one smooth movement, winding all around him in a frantic flurry of limbs. His back hits the sheets, trapping his bound arms beneath him, and Arum is everywhere at once, one hand at the laces of his trousers and another at his throat, pinning him down like captured prey while the other two curl in the fabric of the sheets. 

He fucks like he fights, giving not an inch, pushing his hips up against Damien's in a quick, merciless rhythm. His forked tongue swipes over Damien's face, tasting Rilla there. 

It takes him a fair minute to get the strings undone, but once he manages he curls his fingers around Damien's cock without hesitation. Damien moans and half whimpers, his head spinning and his heart racing quick enough to beat out of his chest. 

"I can feel your heart pounding, Honeysuckle,' Arum says, something not unlike wonder in his rasping voice. Another of his hands brushes his own long tunic aside, and then he's grasping both their cocks at once, thrusting them together. Everywhere he touches Damien heats quickly, 'till he's warm as the stones in the square at noon. "Your blood is _boiling_ for me."

"Yes, yes, it _is_ ," he pants out, but Arum presses down just a little harder on his throat and cuts him off. The 'please' he intended to add comes out a soundless gasp. 

He doesn't slow, but his face shifts again, those piercing purple eyes glaring down at Damien. His face is angular and dangerous even through Damien's blurred vision, framed with a spiky frill like a crown. "And how do you know I won't just spill it here and now?" he asks, one of the fingers at his neck sliding over to find his jugular. "There would be nothing to _stop me_."

"Damien," Rilla says, suddenly alert, but he shakes his head. She backs away, but watches with worry in her eyes. 

He's lingering just on the edge of something, but whether it's a bloody death or a little one Damien cannot tell. The pressure on his throat relents, just for a moment. "Well, little knight?" Arum hisses, "I'm waiting."

"I....I don't," Damien gasps, with the last of his voice, "I cannot stop you. I can't." 

Arum lets out a wild, choking rattle, his teeth bared, and comes. Damien follows him an instant later, his toes curling as all the pent up energy of a battle washes over him at once. 

This, he thinks, a little rashly, before another thought can come crashing back into his head, must be the single greatest peace he has ever known. 

He comes back to awareness by degrees, and feels a clawed hand carding through his hair. Rilla digs her fingers into the stiff joints of his arms, coaxing the feeling back into them with steady patience. Arum sits beside her, tongue twitching inquisitively. Damien shifts closer, and she complies, maneuvering his head into her lap. 

Arum runs a finger over the tender place on his throat soon to show a ring of bruises, and folds his brow in worry. "I forget you humans are so fragile. I might break you if I'm not careful." 

"Well, then," Rilla says, pressing a jar of salve into his hands. "You had better be very careful, Lord Arum."

Watching the two of them is like hearing two ballads sung on opposing sides of the square. But instead of clashing in wild discord and falling to pieces, the melodies blend in strange places and complement each other in small, unexpected ways. A man would be lucky enough to have either one of them. Damien isn't sure any man could be deserving of the blessing it is to have them both. 

Rilla watches him muttering a silent prayer, and takes his hand. "I say we keep him," she says, with a gentle smile.

Damien is inclined to agree.

**Author's Note:**

> also im on tumblr AND twitter @wastrelwoods come chat with me about gay poly knights and lizards and herbalists


End file.
